The Millennium Choice

Genetic Engineering or Natural Law?

Natural Law Party UK Jan99

The development of human civilisation in recent centuries has been shaped to a large degree through the discoveries of modern science. Science has provided an objective, systematic means to understand the laws of nature and to apply the knowledge it provides for the benefit of both individuals and communities.

Agriculture and food production have been major participants in this process. Up until now two key technologies which have produced profound agricultural revolutions have been the mechanisation of farming which began in the 19th century and the chemical based paradigm which developed chiefly after the second world war.

Both technologies represent interventions by man in the 'natural order of things', but do so at quite different levels of natural law. The chemical approach acts at a level which is considerably more complex than the mechanical, and as a result requires a much more extensive breadth of knowledge for it to be applied without creating unintentional life-damaging effects.

Few people question the value of the mechanisation of agriculture. However, over the years hindsight has required the withdrawal of various agro-chemical products from use because of their damage to health or the environment, and even now the true effect of those that remain in use is not fully understood. These difficulties arise because the technology is applied at a level of nature's functioning in respect of which science's own knowledge base is inadequate. Additionally errors made at the chemical level are much more pervasive and insidious than those made at a mechanical level.

Now, as we arrive at the beginning of the third millennium, we find sections of the scientific community (in conjunction with powerful commercial interests) presenting genetic engineering as the next and most desirable step in our ability to transform our systems of agricultural production. Higher yields, production from otherwise unproductive land, reduced chemical usage, improved nutritional content of food and many other hoped for benefits are the goal of this new technology.

But genetic engineering operates on the basis of manipulating and controlling the DNA of living organisms. This involves intervention at a level of natural law infinitely more complex than any previous technology applied in the field of food and agriculture, and in respect of which there are few reliable science-based predictive models.

By contrast after three hundred years or more of theoretical and empirical progress physics is a highly developed science. It is able to tell us almost everything there is to know about the nature of non-living matter from sub-atomic particles through to the behaviour of stars. It even reveals that the behaviour of such diverse microscopic and macroscopic systems are related and connected - something which would have been inconceivable at the time of Newton and certainly before the development of the unified field theories of the twentieth century.

Above all what the new physics has told us is that to understand the functioning of any natural system it is not sufficient to have knowledge of its components, it is also necessary to understand relationships within the system. And so we have found that at nearly the most profound level of physical functioning - the nuclear level - powerful forces are involved which man does not have the capacity to contain with any degree of long term reliability.

As with genetic engineering today, nuclear technology was presented by its proponents as having the potential to solve vital world resource problems. Nuclear energy would be so cheap and efficient that it would not be necessary to meter electricity supplies. That was the promise, but today we know better. The German government now has a commitment, however vague, to phase out nuclear power and in the UK the nuclear energy industry is the only public utility the government is unable to privatise because no one is willing to take on the costs of its long term liabilities.

In relative terms the science underpinning genetic engineering finds itself where physics sat three hundred years ago. Certainly the vast majority of genetic components and relationships are nowhere near being identified, let alone understood.

Physics is already highly developed because it has had the task of integrating only a handful of fundamental components and forces, all of which ultimately are derived from a common source. In genetic engineering the number of components and relationships is almost infinite.

Even in simple biological organisms like bacteria, the total potential interactions between genetic components run into many millions. These relationships have until now been managed by the intelligence of the organism's own DNA. It is now proposed that these relationships should be 'controlled' by the same species whose own limited intelligence has mistakenly and irretrievably peppered the globe with unmanageable nuclear waste - man.

In traditional plant breeding it is the highly sophisticated discriminatory intelligence of the plant which ultimately determines which genes may be accepted as part of the newly created organism, and it is that same intelligence which determines their placement and functioning within it. This process is driven by the information and knowledge contained within the DNA of the plant itself and exercised as an integral part of the natural sexual breeding process.

With genetic engineering this process is completely bypassed. Single genes are selected by the 'scientist' and randomly inserted into the genome of the host organism. The scientist has no control over their placement. In fact the plant geneticist has little or no knowledge as to where the new genes should be placed in any case; and usually he does not know where they have actually lodged even after his work has been completed. He simply "hopes for the best." Furthermore the inserted genes will frequently be taken from totally unrelated species.

Because of the limitations of the technology, in most cases the process will also necessarily involve the insertion of genetic material from at least one foreign pathogen, the most common of which (the 35S promoter) is taken from a virus which is very similar to Hepatitis B and related to HIV. The consequences of using such elements have even been questioned by researchers at the John Innes Institute, one of the UK's premier research establishments in the field of agricultural genetic engineering. Despite this, routine use of such pathogen-derived elements continues.

After only 20 years or so of development genetic engineering still involves processes which are random and 'trial and error' in nature, and in that sense they are imprecise and unscientific. The biotechnologist has little or no prior predictive power as to how a new gene will behave in the host organism. Without demonstrable predictive power it is inappropriate to refer to any process as 'engineering' or 'science-based'. As Einstein himself once said: "If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?

Let us be absolutely clear about this - genetic engineering is only just at the most basic and primitive stage of its own research. If this somewhat alarming analysis is correct, then given the rapid introduction of genetically engineered crops and related technologies in the United States and elsewhere, we would expect things to be going wrong already - and indeed they are. Things are going badly wrong even after supposedly rigorous statutory testing and approval procedures. Here are some examples of the 'successes' of post-approval genetic engineering to date:

• in 1989 Showa Denko marketed an amino-acid food supplement manufactured using a genetically modified bacteria which produced an acutely poisonous new toxin. 37 people died and 1500 people were left permanently disabled in the US, resulting in claims of over $2 billion.

• milk currently produced on a widespread basis in the US utilising a genetically engineered drug (rBST) manufactured by Monsanto is known to contain an insulin-like growth hormone at levels associated with breast, prostate and intestinal cancer. Approval for the product was granted in 1993 despite evidence of toxic effects on rats submitted to (but not reported by) the Food and Drug Administration by the manufacturers. This issue is now subject to parliamentary hearings in Canada, and calls by American Senators for an investigation into the drug's earlier approval in the US.

• Calgene's Flavr Savr tomato was heralded as a breakthrough in genetic engineering in 1994. However, the delayed ripening characteristics engineered into the tomato were also accompanied by an unintended susceptibility to bruising. This forced farmers and processors to spend millions of dollars re-equipping their harvesting and handling systems, and eventually to abandon the product.

• despite claims from the biotechnology industry that genetic engineering is necessary to feed the world and to provide more renewable resources, yields from genetically engineered soya, cotton, oilseed rape and sugar beet since 1996 have proved to be lower than from traditional varieties. Some US farmers are now starting to pull out of these crops. Some herbicide resistant crops are also in practice requiring multiple applications of herbicide, rather than the single application originally envisaged.

• despite being deemed 'substantially equivalent' to traditional varieties by the regulatory authorities, genetically modified soya has been shown to produce biochemical changes in the milk of cows to which it is fed. It is possible that these may reflect raised estrogen levels in the beans as a result of their treatment by the glyphosphate herbicide with which they are engineered to be used. Elevated levels of estrogen are known to be damaging to animal and human health.

• in 1997 and 1998 farmers in at least four states in the US have been experiencing special problems with Monsanto's herbicide resistant cotton. These range from the cotton bolls falling off the plant prior to harvest to root deformation and plant collapse. Some farmers have experienced total crop losses and Monsanto have paid out millions of dollars in compensation.

• in 1998 Canadian farmers have reported the arrival by cross-pollination of genetically engineered herbicide resistant oilseed rape plants as weeds on fields where none had been sown. In order to control them farmers are having to widen the range of chemicals used on their farms because the new weeds are resistant to Monsanto's Roundup herbicide. AgrEvo has also acknowledged that a similar scenario is likely to emerge in relation to its own herbicide resistant products. Effects of this type are now the subject of farmer-manufacturer litigation in Canada.

• in 1998 Novartis began offering financial incentives to US farmers who agree to plant up to 40% of their maize crops in non-genetically modified varieties. This is because the effectiveness of their genetically engineered Bt pesticide maize (in controlling the European Corn Borer) is collapsing almost immediately after its commercial launch.

• in 1998 Swiss research also revealed that Novartis's genetically modified Bt maize can produce toxic effects in non-target beneficial insects.

• since the 1980s doctors throughout the world have been transferring people with diabetes from porcine insulin onto genetically engineered so-called 'human' insulin. Thousands of diabetics have since suffered serious adverse effects from this product, including up to 50 suspected deaths. This is despite the fact that far stricter rules than those which apply to genetically engineered agricultural and food products govern the testing and approval of genetically engineered drugs. The genetically engineered insulin was claimed by one of its manufacturers to be 'one hundred percent a safe drug'.

What these experiences tell us is that with genetic engineering we are moving from so-called 'science' to applied technology in a way which is invasive almost beyond imagination, and with only a tiny fragment of the knowledge necessary to predict the results. The chief executive of Monsanto has himself described the effects of genetic engineering as "unknown, and to some degree unknowable" ; and yet we are proposing to use this technology to irrevocably change the fundamental molecular structure of the world's food supply utilising un-recallable, self-replicating organisms.

What little science there is already tells us that gene placement and inter-chromosomal relationships between genes are important, and yet even many of the genes themselves within the plants that we are currently modifying have yet to be identified. There is not a single agricultural plant which has had its gene map completed.

Even before properly establishing this elementary information, we are then proceeding to randomly insert into our food foreign genetic material from viruses and bacteria which have never been an integral part of the human diet. In the words of Professor Philip James, the principal advisor to the UK government on the establishment of the proposed Food Standards Agency: "The perception that everything is totally straightforward and safe is utterly naive. I don't think we fully understand the dimensions of what we're getting into."

This scenario is far from encouraging. The scale and penetration of what is proposed is almost beyond belief. It is estimated by some that the majority of the world's food supply will be genetically engineered within 5-10 years if what currently sits in the corporate pipeline is allowed to go ahead.

What this astonishing situation reveals is not simply a problem concerning the 'science' of genetic engineering itself, or even of the health of the relationship between science, commercial interests, regulatory authorities, and government. What it demonstrates is a problem of our own consciousness. It is essentially a problem of the way we think, both as individuals and collectively as a society. And what it particularly demonstrates is our inability to learn from experience and to think and act holistically.

As such the debate about genetic engineering raises questions not simply about the use of the technology itself, but about the very nature of the society that we are trying to create at the end of the twentieth century. Do we wish to build a society which harnesses natural law, or one that violates it; one that nurtures life (including our own) or one that destroys it?

These are questions of immense importance, and they are ones not to be considered on an exclusive basis solely by senior scientific, commercial and political professionals. These are questions to be considered by every man and every woman, and particularly by those who are most directly responsible for the thought processes and values of our society as we enter the new millennium - our teachers and educators.

Mark Griffiths BSc FRICS FAAV
Environment Spokesman
Natural Law Party (UK)

January 1999 (Copyright Reserved)

(The Natural Law Party does not consider the risks posed by genetically engineered crops and food to be realistically containable, and is active in over 80 countries in seeking a permanent global ban. More information on these risks is available at www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex .)

Footnote 1: For more information on the 35S viral promoter visit www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/camv.htm

Footnote 2: Bob Shapiro, Chief Executive of Monsanto, admitting that the effects of genetic engineering are unknown and "to some degree" unknowable (State of the World Forum, News interview, San Francisco, 27 October 1998):

"But we realize that with any new and powerful technology with unknown, and to some degree unknowable - by definition - effects, then there necessarily will be an appropriate level at least, and maybe even more than that, of public debate and public interest."